We begin with some less-than-stellar Neelix-and-Kes dialogue, followed by Kes eating a bunch of beetles. Then the ship gets involved in a rather unsafe relationship with a bunch of space slugs while Kes enters what turns out to be a premature preparation for childbirth by getting angry and doing things with her back. Uh... alright. Moving on.

I'm rarely a fan of "shall we have a baby?" subplots in fiction -- no, strike that, I'm not sure I've ever been a fan of them. As someone who's long since decided fatherhood isn't really for me, they bore me; I've almost positively moved well past that question so it's a slog whenever it comes up in entertainment. Not to mention there are very, very few narrative romantic arcs that do anything for me either... and this isn't one of them. So it was a double whammy of boring.

Saving grace? Jennifer Lien's performance. Wow, that woman can really work wonders with a silly script.

VOY: "Non Sequitur"

Well it ain't "In the Pale Moonlight" but compared to the last one it may as well be. Conventional enough scenario by Trekkian terms -- someone wakes up somewhere they aren't supposed to be and has to make sense of it all. Hell, "Projections" did it rather recently...

Harry Kim gets short shrift later into the series and it's kind of a shame. Sure, Garrett Wang is no Patrick Stewart but he isn't a tenth as bad as some claim, at least not here. I believed his plight and I feel a tinge of pain when his fiancee rather emotionally pointed out that he can't truly comprehend what it is like to have someone you love abruptly change as, from her perspective, he had. Pretty powerful stuff, really.

Delinquent!Tom was fun, too. In the end it all boiled down to re-aligning the flux capacitor with the self-sealing stembolt via the GPS or whatever, but sometimes it's the journey that matters. Oh, and great music this episode.

VOY: "Twisted"

I think the episode title sums things up more acutely than intended. There's a lot of good here but there's also some very blatant padding and it twists what could have been a highly engaging hour into something less so.

Nevertheless, the good moments kept it well above water. My heart almost skipped a beat when Janeway got tugged forward by the energy field, and the timing was impeccable: right after she says something so touchingly sweet to Ensign Kim like that.

Which leads me to the real winner with "Twisted" -- delightful character moments abound. Tuvok's 'do nothing' approach is an element I can definitely see bothering a lot of people but I thought it was rather compelling. Especially because it gave us a particularly strong penultimate scene; watching almost everyone embracing their potential end like that was pretty awesome.

Reed Alert. Going to Phlox for something to help you with a headache, NOT a good idea.

A great from Season 2, believe or not.

Click to expand...

I believe it. I love this episode. Firstly, i think it follows in Trek tradition, that in early seasons, the crew would be infected with some behavior alerting desease. Roddenberry saw this device as a way of "getting to know the characters quickly." The man had interesting ideas of how to write for television. The particular disease for singularity is more of a condition, and it is almost hard to to tell when it takes of hold of individual members, as they have started their trivial tasks at the beginning of the episode. I almost with wish that Vulcan's weren't declared immune.. they would have had to do almost no major rewriting, as T'Pol's obsession was to get to the bottom of what was happening. A winner.

Not without merit but far from spectacular, "Parturition" stands firmly in the category of middling. As has seemed typical of this series so far, good performances save an otherwise-uninspiring plot from its doom. Seeing the quarrel between Tom Paris and Neelix given some dignity in its resolution is good and I loved Janeway's straightforward "solve it" in regard to their issues. But was this an afterschool special?

VOY: "Persistence of Vision"

An interesting if silly hour. Paris' vision of his father and Janeway's vision of Mark stand out as somewhat amusing; Torres' hidden Chakotay-bound affection on the other hand was trite. Poor Tuvok, too.

Any episode that features Kes saving the day has been a worthy one thus far; I know that's not exactly the most common thought in fandom but that's just how I feel. Her turning-the-tables moment against the alien was pretty cool and the alien's subsequent "because I can" was appropriately haunting. All in all, an OK episode.

VOY: "Tattoo"

Here's another one I hear complaints about frequently but I'm fine with -- Chakotay's heritage. Maybe future episodes will have me join the naysayers but damn, "Tattoo" was nifty. Beltran's performance was well-rounded, the plot itself was hokey but intriguing and the music was especially nice. Good outing.

Actually, I liked this episode too. All those "Kes' shows were the worst, augh" people ain't got nothin' on my enjoyment. It was lovely watching the character brought into such a situation and eerie seeing her burn all those plants. And oh boy, the scene where Kes almost kills Tuvok... I had chills.

Learning more about the Ocampa was fun. I'm left wondering why Suspiria chose the form of a little girl, but then, the other Caretaker was an old man with a banjo. Maybe I shouldn't dwell.

Found it funny how Janeway vows to find her again, too, since I recall it never happening.

VOY: "Maneuvers"

& btw chakky-poo im preggerz w/ ur baby XFD

Ahem. This was a good episode, another strong Chakotay feature with some terrific action sequences and more importantly, Seska's return in all her deviancy. We learned more about what makes the Kazon tick, and I gotta say, Culluh's pretty lucky he has Seska tugging him along because he'd be lost without her.

My thoughts on the final moments of the hour are summed-up in that chatspeak up there.

I'll get it out of the way right now -- I loved this episode. The guest star's performance and character were quite memorable, as well s Janeway's eventual reluctant acceptance to play a part in his delusional interpretations. All the characters important to the plot got good development, especially B'Elanna and Tuvok.

I'm also a complete sucker for remotely Orwellian societies in fiction, namely watching them get their asses kicked in any way possible. So this one had everything. One of the best so far.

VOY: "Prototype"

Apart from the absurdness of the robots' design, this was another very solid episode. Torres got quite a bit to chew on and Dawson delivered. The teaser in particular was very effective, as well as the climax. The regulated chiming-in of the newly-activated and titual prototype repeating its readiness for programming was a spark of genius on the part of the writers, filling an already-chaotic last act with the peculiarity of robotic birth.

This show is on a roll right now.

VOY: "Alliances"

Geez, what is this, six solid hours of Voyager in a row? This is not what jaded fans have told me since I left the series when it ended! This is not the promise of agony I was told I'd have to endure since I forgot most of the show! This is genuinely impressive!

More Kazon stuff, more Seska being a total bitch (but damn, she knows how to rule over those morons). I was disappointed Chakotay didn't get the chance to confront her over that crazy message she recently provided, but we did learn (and I remembered from ancient viewing) that the child is Culluh's. D'aw, how positively nauseating.

The Trabe character was an understandable bastard at the end there and I rolled my eyes a little bit at Janeway's denouement. But whatever, all in all a decent outing. And that Jonas is a menace. Nice to see the show knew how to carry a few arcs at least at some point in its run.

I wonder if the joys will continue!

VOY: "Threshold"

Brannon Braga,

You've done some great scripts over the years but I regret to inform you this recent show has left me with a clear sense of LOL. Try as I might, I can't shake the urge to LMAO at the ridiculous nature of "Threshold", truly the most XDWTF episode in series history. Its LMFAO is known throughout all quadrants of fandom, leaving a strong urge to ROFLMAO upon mere mention.

TOS: Patterns of Force. - Advanced beings from another galaxy. Their advanced ship was destroyed when passing through the outer rim but the less advanced Enterprise is going to take them back safely? ...